


Not a Spy Story

by Elf (Elfwreck)



Category: Original Work
Genre: Community: Junetide, Gen, Nicaragua, Older Character, Racist Language, Sexist Language, Spies, Undercover Missions, Violence, mentions of Hitler, retired hero
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-02
Updated: 2011-07-02
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:34:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23153323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elfwreck/pseuds/Elf
Summary: Hank Jefferson, a.k.a. Enrique el Jefe, was an undercover agent in Nicaragua in the 80’s. Over twenty-five years later, Nazis are setting up camp, and the agency wants his help again. The problem?  Hank is not a spy. Hank is aformerspy, and he wished he could convince everyone else of that.
Kudos: 1





	Not a Spy Story

**Author's Note:**

  * For [smeddley](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=smeddley).



> This is not the story I intended to write, which had more explosions and possibly some aliens. This has no aliens. It is also very much later than it was intended to be done, and plays rather fast and loose with the prompt. Many thanks to [](https://dharma-slut.dreamwidth.org/profile)[dharma_slut](https://dharma-slut.dreamwidth.org/) for the last-minute hand-holding; any errors that remain are entirely my fault.

`To: <hjefferson@ciaspecialops.gov> Hank Jefferson  
From: <amitchell@ciaspecialops.gov> Alex Mitchell  
Subject: re: re: re: Report in soon please`

`Hank,`

`I know you're retired. Believe me, I really do know. But this situation in Nicaragua is very touchy, and we need everyone who's ever worked there to check in so we can go over any details that might not be in the official reports.`

`--  
Alex Mitchell  
Acting Director of International Investigations  
`

* * *

`To: <amitchell@ciaspecialops.gov> Alex Mitchell  
From: <hjefferson@ciaspecialops.gov> Hank Jefferson  
Subject: re: re: re: Report in soon please`

`Alex,`

`Go to Hell. Everything I had to say about Nicaragua, I said twenty years ago in debriefing. And second debriefing. And third debriefing under goddamn drugs that left me sick for a week. If the flock of secretaries who were taking notes missed something, I'm sure as Hell not going to remember it now.`

`--  
Hank Jefferson  
RETIRED, as in, no longer working, CIA agent. Do not reply to this email with job offers, project details, or office party schedules. Best if you don’t reply to this email at all.`  


* * *

Hank was considering whether to set fire to his computer, and realizing they’d just assign him a new one, when the doorbell rang.

He grabbed his cane before answering. Not that he usually needed it indoors, but he liked to be prepared. More than once, he’d poked it at some damnfool kid who wanted him to vote for whichever thug was trying to gouge the public this year, or pray at a better church, or sign petitions to ban the inhumane treatment of baby squid. Not that he had any problem with door-to-door propaganda-pushers; everyone needed a hobby. But the propagandists needed to learn to take a polite “no, not interested right now;” those who didn’t, risked discovering that Hank could still take out kneecaps with a weighted stick.

He looked through the peephole before opening the door. Young girl, looked to be in her early twenties, white, wavy brown hair, some kind of uniform that looked a little like a nurse’s outfit. Or a candygram stripper’s outfit; the hem was a little high for a nurse. She had an envelope in one hand, and was just reaching for the doorbell a second time when he opened the door.

“Mr. Jefferson? Mr. Henry Jefferson?” She asked, searching his face for confirmation.

He nodded warily. Nobody called him Henry. He’d almost changed his drivers’ license to Hank, but decided to leave it; anyone calling him Henry was automatically identified as a stranger.

The stranger--beamed at him. “Oh God it’s such an _honor_ to finally meet you! I’ve read _all about_ your work in Nicaragua and Thailand and your meetings with the State Department over the Cuba thing--well, not _all_ about those, of course, because a lot of the transcripts are classified above my level, but I read all the ones I could get my _hands_ on, and oh God I’m babbling, aren’t I, and I didn’t mean to overwhelm you but it’s such--such an _honor_...” she trailed off.

Hank didn’t slam the door in her face. Score one for etiquette training, he thought. Decades of practice can override one’s natural impulses.

She waved the envelope at him. “I’m your ride.” She waved it in the direction of the limo parked at the curb. “To the Embassy. Alex sent me.”

He slammed the door in her face.  


`To: <amitchell@ciaspecialops.gov> Alex Mitchell  
From: <hjefferson@ciaspecialops.gov> Hank Jefferson  
Subject: Get Lost`

`Your bimbo is here. After I get rid of her, I’m calling my lawyer and suing you for harassment. What part of RETIRED FIFTEEN YEARS AGO do you people not understand?`

`--`  
Hank Jefferson  
RETIRED, as in, no longer working, CIA agent. Do not reply to this email with job offers, project details, or office party schedules. Best if you don’t reply to this email at all. 

He pressed “send,” and then thought about what to do about the girl banging on his front door. He probably shouldn’t kneecap her, especially if Alex had sent her. 

He yanked open the door hard enough to make her stumble. She managed to catch herself, so he crossed his arms over his chest and demanded, “Which Embassy?”

“Pardon?” She looked flustered.

“Which. Embassy,” he ground out. “Alex has been trying to get me to come into headquarters for a week; now he wants me to visit an embassy?”

“Oh. Yes. The Nicaraguan Embassy, of course. They want to ask--”

“No.”

“Yes, they really do want to ask about whether--”

“No, I’m not going to the Nicaraguan Embassy.”

“Oh.” She looked disappointed for a moment, and then looked up again, fidgeting and diffident. “Would you be willing to come to the Embassy and tell them no? ‘Cos I’m kinda new at this, and they told me to bring you back, and I’m afraid that if I don’t, they’ll fire me, or demote me to the mailroom, and I really want to do field work like you did, Mr. Jefferson. You were _incredible_ in Nic--” he glared, and she changed tracks “--in Thailand; the tea export contract was a stroke of absolute _genius_ ; I really look up to you, sir, and I volunteered for this and I’m afraid if I mess it up I’ll never get another chance to--”

“ALL RIGHT!” Hank hadn’t meant to yell, and he winced as her face fell. Then she looked at him and smiled expectantly, and he realized that he’d agreed to go with her. He closed his eyes and sighed. And nodded. Probably easier to just get this over with.

She _clapped her hands_. Lord love a duck; he was going to the Nicaraguan Embassy with a green hero-worshiping intern. He was shaking his head as he got into the back of the limo; she sat down beside him and poured him a drink as the car pulled out. Scotch and soda; she really must’ve read his entire file. He only drank scotch in moving vehicles. He raised it to her in thanks, and said his usual toast.

“I’m too old for this shit.” He drained the cup, one long drink. That was _good_ scotch. He didn’t recognize the soda, though; it wasn’t Coke and it wasn’t Pepsi, and she was tilting sideways, no, he was tilting sideways, and feeling dizzy--she’d _drugged_ him. And he didn’t even know her name.

…

He awoke sitting in a wheelchair, being pushed at breakneck speed through what looked like an airport terminal. He tried to turn around to see who was pushing him, but only succeeded in bobbing his head a bit, which made him dizzy.

Someone patted his shoulder. At least, he thought that was what happened; the sensation lasted a lot longer than it should have, but that was probably the drugs.

“It’s okay,” someone whispered in his ear. Female voice. Familiar. Hank struggled to be fully conscious, even if he couldn’t control his body yet. “Just a little while longer and we’ll be on our way.”

Her. It was her voice.

“Lemmmme go,” he said, or rather, mumbled. He tried turning around but mostly managed to stare down at the plaid blanket covering his legs. He tried standing but only managed to shuffle his feet on the footrests.

She chuckled and patted his shoulder again. “It’s okay, uncle Henry,” she said loudly; “I know the medication is always difficult for you.”

Uncle *WHAT?*

“Stop this RIGHT NOW,” he yelled. He leaped out of the chair and yanked it out of her hands, knocking her off-balance enough to press her against a wall until security arrived. Or at least, that’s what happened in his head. In reality, he managed to say, “Shh’ob zhish rii’ nao,” and lurch forward in the chair.

She grabbed him by the shoulder and pressed him back. She whispered into his ear, “just play along for now. They’ll never suspect we’re spies!”

“We’re not spies!” He yelled. Tried to yell. Mostly mumbled. It came out as “wee nah shpiezh,” with an annoying amount of drool, and Hank resolved to keep quiet until he’d regained motor control.

She giggled. And whispered again. “That’s good!” And she patted him on the shoulder again.

Hank seethed. And clutched the blanket, because that was the limit of his range of movement. He watched helplessly as they approached a terminal booth, and his kidnapper handed some papers to the attendant behind the desk.

“Can my uncle and I board early?” she asked.

The attendant looked over at him, sympathy filling her eyes. “Oh, the poor dear. Of course you can.”

“Nah mah neesh,” Hank said, as clearly as he could manage.

The attendant cocked her head at him. “What was that, dear?”

Whatzername broke in in a loud stage whisper. “It’s the medication,” she said. “Sometimes it makes him forget things.”

The attendant looked at Hank like he was an injured puppy. He tried to glare at her but probably only succeeded in looking confused. Then she looked back to his captor and said, “there you go, Miss Dumont. Passports and visas all set up. I hope you have a good flight.” Then she looked back at Hank and said, “well, as good as possible for someone in” -- her voice dropped -- “his condition.”

Hank ignored her and focused on the name. Dumont. He didn’t know any Dumonts, had no idea why one would be absconding with him. Dragging him out of the country, apparently, and wouldn’t Alex have a field day with that? Alex had been trying to get him back into field work for the last eight years … A cold chill ran through him.

He turned toward his captor, with better success. “Di’ Alexsh shet thissh up?” he said. So much for waiting until he could talk properly.

She patted his shoulder again, which seemed to be the cue for “I’m going to lie for the public now.” She spoke more over him than to him when she replied, “Just you rest; we’ll be on the plane in a minute. Of course Alice sent your suitcase ahead like she always does.”

He had to give her points for quick thinking. When he was done strangling her, he’d make sure she got a letter of commendation.

“Dumaaah?” he asked.

Shoulder pat. “Yes, Uncle Henry. I’m Belinda Dumont, your niece. _You_ remember. You taught me how to ride a bike.”

He glared at her. Tried to glare at the sympathetic other passengers, but they were far enough away to be blurry, so he turned back to her. “Young,” he said.

“What’s that?”

“Young. Niesh. Yerr too young.” And too white, he didn’t say.

Pat. He’d have to warn her about tells like that. No, dammit, he wasn’t _teaching_ her.

Her voice was clear and a bit loud and sounded phony to his ears, but it also sounded exactly like a longsuffering family member dealing with an old man with bad hearing and a spotty memory. “I’m your grand-niece, silly. Your half-sister’s granddaughter.”

Well, that explained away both the color problem and the age problem, in case anyone was wondering why an old black man had a young white niece. Which, of course, they weren’t, because this was an airport, and nobody cared what anyone else’s story was. He’d just have to go along with her until he was coherent enough to assert his identity. Which probably had to wait for the other end of the flight; arresting someone on a plane was never a good idea if you could avoid it.

The attendant nodded to them, and Miss “Dumont”--if that was her name--pushed Hank through the connector tube and onto the plane. The stewardess got him buckled into place--he glared at her, but he wasn’t sure she even noticed--and Dumont settled in next to him.

She pulled out a small bottle and a medical spoon, and gave him a cheery smile. “Time for your next dose!” she announced brightly.

He clamped his lips shut. She poured a tablespoon of something clear into the spoon, and leaned over to whisper in his ear. “If you don’t cooperate, I’ll tell the flight attendants it’s an anti-psychotic and they need to restrain you for me.” She raised the spoon to his lips.

He glanced at the bottle. Half-full; spitting out a spoonful wouldn’t stop her from trying again. He opened his lips a tiny bit and hoped there was a special place in hell for people like her. He glared at her until blackness overtook him.

… 

This time he woke up in a hotel room. At least, it looked like countless other hotel rooms: cheap bland art on the walls, nondescript bedspreads, chair-table-lamp-television. The waking was easier this time; maybe it was easier to deal with when he wasn’t moving. Or maybe it was a different drug. In any case, he could move himself, sit up on the bed he’d been stretched out on top of. He offered a small prayer of thanks that she hadn’t decided to strip him and put him under the bed.

Where was she? He heard water running nearby; she must be in the bathroom. He wondered if he could get out before she noticed him.

He stood up--and sat right back down. No, still too dizzy. Even with a cane, he wouldn’t be able to walk.

He grabbed a card off the bedside table as he sat down; it welcomed him to sunny Managua and hoped he’d enjoy his stay in the Crowne Plaza Hotel. The message wasn’t any less insipid in Spanish.

She’d dragged him to Nicaragua. Which he’d promised himself he’d never return to. “Dammit!” he swore, not caring that she’d hear him.

Sure enough, she rushed in. She was wiping her face with a hand towel, which she dropped on the end table as she rushed over to him.

“Are you okay?” she began. “I’m soooo sorry about that stuff at the airport, but I couldn’t think of any other way to get you here quickly, and you have to admit it worked. They didn’t even blink at our passports or the fake visas. Now we can work on The Mission!”

He groaned. He could hear the capital letters.

“Lady, who _are_ you?”

“Oh!” Surprise and chagrin, like she’d commited a faux pas instead of several major felonies. “Belinda Dumont,” and she held out her hand. He twisted his mouth, trying to decide whether to spit on it, and she pulled it away as her smile faltered. “I didn’t mean to be so abrupt, but The Mission is really important! And I’ve always wanted to be a spy, like you, and this is the _perfect_ opportunity; I just thought, when Alex sent me to pick you up, I’d just move things along. I knew he didn’t really want to _talk_ to you; he wanted your _expertise_ \--so here you are! With me! Here we are!”

Hank wished he got migraines so this wouldn’t be the worst headache he’d ever had. He picked something at random from the verbal jumble.

“I am not a spy,” he said. Simple things. Start with simple things.

“You’re the _best_ spy!” she retorted. “You held the record for most information retrieved in the least amount of time, and you managed to get details that nobody else ever found out! And you did it all without being discovered!”

“I. Am not. A spy,” he repeated. “I _was_ a spy, but I _stopped_ , OVER FIFTEEN YEARS AGO. I am an EX-spy.” He watched her face with the sinking feeling that nothing he said was going to matter to her.

“And now you’re a returned spy!” she said cheerfully. “And we need to be spies together, because The Mission is very, very important.” Her voice dropped, and she intoned carefully, “We need to stop them from cloning Hitler!”

He put his face in his hands and shook his head back and forth. This can’t be happening. I can’t be stuck in a hotel room with a demented teenager who wants to stop Hitler’s clones. I left the agency to get _away_ from this shit.

“Look, b”-- bitch, he didn’t say, because you never insult your captor if you can avoid it -- “Belinda;” he took a breath, and she stared at him avidly. “If someone is trying to clone Hitler, I’m sure the agency has some perfectly good people working to stop them.”

“No, they don’t! They’re not taking it seriously!”

“I’m pretty sure I’m going to regret asking this, but... how do you know?”

“I work in the mail center and I’m pretty good with computers, so when I was delivering a couple of packages to Alex and he was having trouble with his email I offered to fix his settings for him, and I saw a couple of emails with your name in the subject lines and I couldn’t resist opening them and they want to talk to _you_ because you’re the only one they know who knows enough people here to find out who’s doing the cloning. The Hitler cloning! We have to stop them!”

“We don’t have to do SHIT, girl!” Hank yelled, and seeing her cringe was gratifying. “I am not a spy. I am a **retired old man**. You are not a spy. You are a **goddamn brat** , and a kidnapper. The CIA employs several _thousand_ people to take care of situations exactly like this, and I used to be one of them, and I did this shit for _forty years_ and I’m _done_ now!” He realized he was standing up and shaking his fist at her.

“But it’s HITLER!” She wailed.

“It’s always Hitler!” he shot back. “Or nukes being smuggled into Kansas. Or drug cartels invading our high schools. Or machine guns heading to the Bronx. Or invisible helicopters. Or psychic cryptography. It’s always _something_ , and every goddamn disaster is worse than the last, and I. AM. RETIRED.”

His knees were shaking; adrenaline only went so far in drug recovery. He sat down on the bed. “I’m too old for this shit,” he whispered to the ceiling.

She sat down next to him and put her arm around his shoulder. “You’re never too old for adventure,” she said.

He gently disentangled her arm. “Spying is not an adventure,” he said. “It’s not like the damn James Bond movies. It’s boring and full of paperwork.”

“Well, of course there’s paperwork _after_ ,” she agreed, “but the field work is so exciting!”

“The field work is not exciting. The field work is dressing up in a damn monkey suit and serving drinks to overweight businessmen and taking their coats and offering to track down batteries for their wives’ cameras. The field work is mopping floors in hotel elevators and counting how many people leave on the sixth floor. The field work is parking cars and cleaning windows and making change for twenty thousand dollar poker chips, because those are all _jobs that don’t get noticed._ Spies aren’t supposed to be clever and handsome; spies are supposed to be _invisible._ ”

He took a deep breath. “I left the agency on my sixty-first birthday and swore I’d never again smile and say ‘thank you’ to some white asshole who called me a ‘credit to my race.’”

She looked stricken. “I guess I’ve really screwed things up.”

“Damn straight.”

“I thought this would be fun. I thought you’d enjoy the chance to have another mission, another adventure... it’s perfect for you! There’s all these people wearing swastikas at the Árboles Altos plantation, and you _know_ that place! You’d be able to sneak into the main house and find out what they’re hiding!” She looked at him expectantly, hopefully.

He groaned again. “Árboles Altos? Is the place still run by Felipe San Domingo?”

“You _do_ know! He’s working with Nazis now! At least, I think they’re Nazis; some of the emails are a bit unclear. But there’s definitely pictures of men in uniforms with swastikas around the plantation, and they’re guarding a building that looks like a lab, and the emails have a lot about medical technology and gene splicing and the glory of Hitler, so I’m pretty sure they’re trying to clone him. We have to stop them!”

He looked up at the ceiling again. This is my punishment, Lord, isn’t it. You’ve been saving it up. All the mistakes I’ve done in my life are coming home to roost; I’m trapped in a Nicaraguan hotel room with a Nazi conspiracy freak. I swear I will return every overdue library book in my home if you just get me out of here.

He turned back to her. “San Domingo once called me the only nigger he didn’t want to kill on sight.”

“Oh, that’s _terrible!_ ” She’d gone round-eyed and her lip was wobbling like she was about to cry. “You should never have to face such horrible racism! Nobody should! I’m so, so sorry I brought you here where you might have to face that again!”

He closed his eyes. He was going to strangle her, he was, just as soon as he got his bearings. She didn’t mind _drugging and kidnapping_ him, but she was appalled at a little racism. He cleared his throat

“It was part of the job. Smile, look stupid, take whatever shit they throw at you, and report everything later. If he was calling me a stupid negro, that meant he wasn’t paying attention to where I was or who I was talking to, and he didn’t care if he talked in front of me.”

“I can’t make you go through that again.” She was shaking her head, pacing around the room. “I’ll just have to go on alone.”

What the Hell was she talking about?

She didn’t look at him while she paced and muttered. “Gonna have to find another plane heading back to the States … maybe bribe another flight attendant … check if my PayPal has enough for a direct flight …”

Did she say PayPal? “Did you say PayPal? You bought our tickets with PayPal?”

She looked puzzled. “Of course. Isn’t that how everyone buys plane tickets online?”

“Let me get this straight: you showed up at my door with instructions to bring me to Alex, drugged me, kidnapped me,” -- she flinched, but he continued -- “stole my passport and claimed to be a relative,” -- she was shaking her head. “Are you trying to tell me you didn’t pretend to be my niece? Grandniece, whatever?”

“No, not that. I didn’t steal your passport. I didn’t know where it was, so I had one made for you. I know that’s kind of a crime, but it was for a good reason, because I needed you here to help stop the Nazis. I figured it’d be less of a crime if I used your real name because then it’s obvious that you’re not, you know, pretending to be someone else.”

“You’ve brought me to Nicaragua on a fake passport. That you bought in an afternoon. With my real name on it. On a ticket you paid for with PayPal. With your real name on it.”

She nodded. “Was that wrong?”

“Only if you didn’t want to set up red flags in every law-enforcement agency in both countries.”

“But I wasn’t doing anything wrong.” She had the gall to look confused.

“Lady, you are a piece of work. You _kidnapped_. In the country where I grew up, that’s a _felony_. While I admit ‘drugged and kidnapped a former federal agent’ is not high on the list of things they look for when someone buys plane tickets out of the country in a hurry, it’s not too far down, either.”

He found himself standing again, looming over her, and realized his legs weren’t wobbling anymore. He looked around for his cane, hoping she’d brought it--there it was, by the door. He pushed past her and grabbed it.

“Now I’m going HOME. And Alex is going to crucify you for the international collect calls he’s going to pay for to get me out of here.” He opened the door and stepped into the hall.

Where he found a squad of angry-looking men in military uniforms with a lot of guns between them. He rolled his eyes and raised his arms.

Hank addressed them as clearly as he could manage. “ _No disparen, por favor_ ,” he said. Please don’t shoot me. “ _La mujer que probablemente están buscando está por dentro_.” The woman you’re probably looking for is inside.

He wondered just how wide a paper trail she left, and how many warning signs she set off. He continued to wonder while he was pressed against the wall and roughly searched, while she was dragged out of the room and the contents of her suitcases strewn across the floor.

She argued with them in fluent Spanish that was, if possible, even more scattered and incoherent than her English, until one of them slapped her to shut her up. He snorted at that.

Three guns turned to him. “ _Soy demasiado viejo para esta mierda,_ ” Hank muttered. The one closest to him smirked, but didn’t lower his gun. Hank tried not to look impatient or bored while they searched the room, and gave a longsuffering sigh when the men tied flour sacks over both of their heads and marched them into a van.

He fell asleep while they were driving. It had been a long day.

…

He woke up, not unexpectedly, in a cell, on a thin mattress on a metal shelf. Cinderblock walls, tiny window up high, lightbulb in a cage up even higher. He sat up to get his bearings; _she_ was curled up on the floor with a thin blanket over her. Either they decided the old man deserved the bed, or the annoying girl didn’t.

He ~~enjoyed the respite~~ let her sleep while he considered his resources and his options. The cell was larger than a normal prison cell; this must be a converted storage room, perhaps a former wine cellar. No tools he could find unless he wanted to count the blankets, which he didn’t. No cane, wallet, or knife, but they’d left him his shoes. He considered how long it had been since he’d considered shoelaces to be potential weapons, and decided it was too long. Besides, the laces weren’t long enough for a decent garrote, even if his hands had the strength. Which they didn’t.

He was trying to decide the best three-second phrase to shout at civilians to convince them to send a message to the American Embassy, should he have the opportunity to do so, when she started to wake up. He refrained from kicking her in the head to keep her asleep, and congratulated himself on his self-restraint.

“Where are we?” she asked.

He rolled his eyes. “Obviously, we’re in the ambassador’s guest suite at the Canadian consulate.”

“This doesn’t look like--oh.” She grimaced. “This hasn’t been anything like I thought it would be.”

He had nothing to say to that, and tried to ignore her pacing around the room, poking at corners and obviously looking for “secret passages,” while he went back to figuring out how to bargain for his freedom.

After a few minutes, a scruffy-looking soldier with an AK-47 showed up at the door. He waved the gun at them to get them to stand back, and then unlocked the door; he looked so nervous that Hank was afraid he’d shoot them by accident if he dropped the keys.

“Don’t try anything!” the soldier barked at them. “I will shoot you dead!”

Hank sat very still, raised his hands and set them apart from his body in the universal posture of _not a threat to you._ As he expected, his travelling companion wasn’t capable of that.

“Please, you’ve got to get us out of here,” she rattled off in fluent, fervent Spanish. “This is all a mistake! I’m an American tourist, and my family will pay you quite a bit to get me to an airport. Or just get me to a computer, and I can wire you money from my account. I can probably even arrange for, um, sanctuary--asylum! That’s the word! Can arrange for political asylum for you if you help.” She looked at him hopefully.

He looked her over. Looked her up and down, and grinned when she flushed. He turned to face Hank.

“Is she yours?”

“I wouldn’t--”

“Am I _his_? What kind of question is THAT?” she almost shrieked. “I don’t belong to anyone! I’m a free woman!” She crossed her arms over her chest defiantly.

Hank found himself muttering, “You don’t look very free to me.” The guard snickered.

Then he seemed to remember his purpose, and pointed the gun at Hank. “You. Come with me.”

Hank made a decision. “No.” He crossed his arms over his chest, and hoped he looked less flustered than Miss Dumont.

The guard narrowed his eyes and took a step forward. “Come with me, or I will shoot you.”

“Señor, I am seventy-eight years old. I have a bad knee and my cane is not here. In the last twenty-four hours, I have been drugged twice, abducted twice, and thrown in a cell. I’m _tired_ , and I’m not inclined to cooperate. If you’re going to shoot me, you can damn well shoot me and put me out of my misery. I’m too old for this shit.”

The soldier glared at him, looking for some sign he was bluffing. His eyes flickered, and he turned to point the gun at the girl.

“Then I will shoot her!”

She gasped.

Hank half-choked, and said, “If you do that, and I get out of here, I will pay you one hundred American dollars if you let me watch.”

“WHAT!” She _shrieked_ , and Hank watched the soldier flinch. _He must be pretty green,_ he had time to think before her mouth caught up with the shock. “You’ll _pay_ him to shoot me? How can you say such a thing? You’re--you’re a cold-blooded _killer!_ I can’t believe I used to admire you! My GOD, you’re a MONSTER!” And on. And on. The soldier was wincing now, and his hand was shaking on the gun, and that was never a good sign. Hank broke into her tirade.

“Shut UP, you crazy white bitch!” he yelled.

Silence. Blessed, glorious silence. For about twelve seconds, while the guard looked incredibly relieved.

“... I’m not white,” she said in a tiny voice.

That wasn’t what he expected. “What?”

“Not white,” and that was stronger, but still almost a whisper. “My mother was Latina.”

Hank looked at her sharply, noted the color and wave of her hair, the height of her cheekbones, the shape of her eyes. And shrugged.

“I notice you don’t argue with the crazy bitch part,” Hank muttered.

She hung her head. “I didn’t mean for this to happen. I wanted, I wanted to be a spy. Like my uncle. Like you were,” and she smiled up at Hank, but it faltered when he didn’t smile back. “I wanted to do something special, something to help my country. I’m so, so sorry.” She didn’t meet his eyes.

The soldier looked confused. Whatever script he’d planned out in his head, this wasn’t it.

“You,” Hank said. “You, you, _you_. It’s all about what you wanted, what YOU planned. Never bothered to check what other people were doing with their lives, did you? Didn’t want to let pesky things like _laws_ get in the way of your fun.” He was standing now, almost yelling at her, watching her cringe as he came closer. “You have been a thoughtless, selfish, careless BITCH and it’s possible you’ve gotten us KILLED--”

Hank grabbed the rifle in the guard’s hands and slammed the butt end up to crack him in the jaw. He crumpled, and Hank clubbed him on the back of the neck, probably not hard enough to kill him but Hank was beyond caring.

He looked over to her. “Come on, then. Let’s get out of here before this place explodes.” He started toward the door.

“ _Explodes_?”

At least she was moving. He wasn’t going to spare any effort to make sure she stayed close.

“Explodes,” he confirmed, talking distractedly as he moved down the corridor, pointing the gun around the corner before turning. “If they found us that easy, Alex can’t be far behind. Whatever’s going on here, whatever intel or plans the agency had, you’ve just scrambled them. And seeing how incompetent this group is--I don’t think I’ve seen anyone send one guard for two prisoners since a certain teenage street gang in the Korean war--I expect one side or the other to trigger their stockpile of weapons soon.”

“How do you know they’ve got a stockpile of weapons?” Damn. He hadn’t lost her. Not that he expected to; this was an overdeveloped cellar, not a labyrinth prison.

“They’ve got this,” he tapped the gun, “and it’s in good shape, and fully loaded, and they handed it to what looks like a green recruit. At the very least, they’ve got a lot of bullets somewhere.”

She made a worried noise but, thankfully, didn’t say anything else. He concentrated on finding a way _up_ that wasn’t a way through a huge crowd of armed men. Not that there was much to concentrate on … a few rooms, all empty, and a corridor that turned. He reached the end of it far too soon, found the wooden stairs that led outside, with half the cellar door open, and realized he’d have to just go up.

He considered sending her up first.

He couldn’t think of any drawbacks to that plan, at least not for him, so he turned around, and gestured at her to climb the stairs.

Her eyes got wide, and she looked like he’d kicked her, but she went.

No shots. No yells. No sounds of scrambling to the side. So far, so good.

“It’s all clear,” she said, obviously irritated.

He climbed up the stairs that opened to face a ploughed field carved out of the jungle. The house loomed behind them, a threat of unknown value. Nobody was nearby; what kind of incompetent staff did this place have, anyway?

He didn’t care. The point was to get _away_. He set off across the field; whatever direction the nearest road was, he wasn’t crossing in front of any of the other windows of the house to get to it.

She followed. And found her voice again. “Where are we going? Are any of them nearby? Maybe we should’ve taken the guard’s uniform. Won’t they notice we’re gone soon? What happens when the guard wakes up? I wonder where the nearest phone tower is.” She continued, talking softly but a never-ending barrage of questions and comments, until he wanted to shoot her, and if that wouldn’t have guaranteed his quick recapture, he might have done it.

He’d almost reached the edge of the field and was wondering how he was going to find a path without a machete, when he turned around to tell her to _shut the hell up_. He glared at her, and that got her quiet, and then she opened her mouth again--

The house exploded into a fireball.

He grabbed her hand and _ran_ into the jungle. A rifle-barrel made a lousy machete but it worked a lot better than hands, and adrenaline was a _powerful_ motivator for speed.

He had no idea how long they ran. He cut down a lot of green things. He heard a lot of yelling, and pointed the rifle a few times, but nothing ever seemed close enough to waste bullets at. If she spoke to him, he’d stopped paying attention. They ran until they broke through to a road, an actual paved road, which told him this was all happening much too close to a big city.

They needed to figure out which way went toward the city, and stay close to the edge of the road so they could duck into the trees or a ditch if--

She was waving at a truck.

She was yelling and waving her arms to bring a truckload of men in uniforms over to them. “ _Aqui! Aqui!_ ” Over here! “ _Nos ayudan por favor!_ ” Help us please.

He pointed the rifle at her. At least he would have quiet when he was abducted for a third time.

The people in the truck pointed guns at him--which wasn’t surprising; he’d’ve done the same in their position, even if he’d known how annoying she was. Always point your guns at the one who’s armed.

Then he saw the uniforms. US insignia on their shoulders; these were US troops. Alex’s men must’ve been _very_ close behind them. He smiled--and the run caught up with him. He collapsed.

…

He recovered in a civilian hospital. They tried to keep him in a government-run facility, but he kept pulling out the IV’s and trying to leave; they eventually negotiated for his cooperation (and silence) at Mercy General, a few miles from his home. He pointed out that even if he talked, nobody would believe him; that had never been a concern of theirs before and it didn’t reassure them now. He signed papers agreeing not to reveal anything he’d learned, which was effectively nothing.

Alex offered to explain what had really been going on, and he refused. Politely at first, followed by loudly, followed by loudly with thrown objects. The nurses kept Alex away after that.

Six months later, Hank was reading about successful lawsuits against government agencies when the doorbell rang. He grabbed his cane, limped over to it, and yanked it open to glare at whoever disturbed his afternoon.

 _She_ was there, holding a baby in swaddling clothes. It had a tiny black moustache.

“We _caught_ them!” she said excitedly. “We found the clone banks and shut down the whole thing, except eight of them were already out of the tubes, and so we had to keep those, and they’re just so _cute_ even if they are genetically modified to look like the adult Hitler, and look, this is Adolfus II, and we call him Dolfie, isn’t he the sweetest--” she held the baby up to show it off.

He slammed the door in her face.

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted at <https://junetide.dreamwidth.org/14056.html>, where there are comments.


End file.
